South America Snow Sessions has gone above and beyond the normal summer camp scene by joining Sierra Nevada College (SNC) to introduce adventure travel courses where students can earn college credits on location in Bariloche, Argentina.
This season SNC and SASS offered the AIARE Level 1 avalanche course to students and gave them the opportunity to take the class with world-renowned guide, patroller, and SNC instructor Lel Tone. The course teaches the essentials of backcountry safety and focuses on search and rescue. GrindTV had a chance to sit down with Lel and Austen Bulter, a student at SNC, to get an inside look at AIARE Level 1 to learn importance of this course.
Check out what they had to say.
Lel Tone: AIARE stands for American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education and its a very high caliber prestigious course. Level 1 is being offered through SNC at SASS. It's a great stand alone course for anyone that wants to travel alone in the backcountry and for those that are interested in search and rescue. It's a crucial for backcountry riding and for people traveling in avalanche prone areas. Everyone that completes the course comes away with their AIARE Level 1 Certification.
The AIARE Level 1 class is a two credit course, so SNC students have the opportunity to travel from Incline Village in Tahoe to Bariloche, Argentina to continue their education.
I've been teaching this course for the last 8 years to a lot of different demographics. Mostly to adults who are coming into this with a few years of experience and so this has been a different crowd at SASS.
I'm most impressed with SASS and SNC because they are making sure all of their clients, whether they are interested in backcountry riding or not, are given the ability to learn the nuts and bolts of avalanche rescue. This huge because it goes beyond what a lot of these other camps are doing.
It's been really fun to work with SASS, SNC and with the students. I'm so impressed with how stoked, fired up and genuinely passionate everyone has been during the classes.
The course is 3-4 weeks with classes on the mountain and in the classroom. The AIARE Level 1 curriculum is based on 24 hour course and SNC goes beyond that time frame by cranking it up to about 28 hours. We want the students can feel incredibly comfortable and confident coming out of the class.
As Americans we need to realize that when we come down to ski in the Southern Hemisphere, we're in a different country, things are different, and the ski patrol doesn't have access to as many explosives, so the mitigation work is different. In South America, they expect people to be responsible for themselves, and I think in America we think that everyone else is responsible for our safety. SASS is doing a great service to their students to really expose them to that, and to educate them on how they can be responsible for themselves on the mountain. Its a really great thing that they are doing down here, and its been a really cool experience for me to see that.
Lel enjoyed her experience with SASS and looks forward to teaching more courses through SNC in years to come.
Austen Butler sending it in the backcountry of Cerro Catedral. Photo: Ben Girardi
Austen Butler is an up and coming shredder originally from Idaho who now lives in Tahoe and attends SNC. He chose this college to could continue snowboarding while getting an eduction and having the chance to travel.
Butler said this about his SASS and SNC experience:
It's my first time down here and it's been awesome. I've been really excited about the whole education factor. The AIARE course was amazing. Lel Tone is a renowned ski patroller and backcountry guide so her expertise is beyond anything that I could have asked for. Chris Coulter was also in my class, and he's a pro snowboarder that I've looked up to my entire career snowboarding. It was cool to have two people with so much expertise, giving me so much advice and knowledge. The course has opened my eyes and I learned a lot in my time down here. Now I feel safe, and I feel like I can really make good decisions in the backcountry.
We're getting hammered with snow, so I'm excited to use my knowledge from the avalanche course and test the snow and see the snow pack at Cerro Catedral. Laguna has some crazy terrain that I've never gotten to shred before. It's real backcountry in the Andes mountains, and something I've always dreamed to shred, and now I'm here with the knowledge to be shredding it.
A really big part of this experience is that everyone is strictly here because they either love to ski or snowboard. There's no ski or snowboard social order. Snowboarding is such a competitive sport among your friends and others that the competitiveness sometimes makes it hard, but down here that's completely gone. Everyone is together shredding and learning and being apart of the [SASS family]. I'm stoked, can't wait to come back. This educational experience was unlike anything else.
Once i get back, I'm going to tell all my friends that they need to get down to SASS and they to get their avalanche certification.
Being prepared in the backcountry is your responsibility as a snowboarder and skier, and we commend SASS and SNC for offering this course. They have a strong commitment to educating their clients about avalanche safety and the inclusion of the AIARE course is a testament to this.
For more information on the course and the curriculum check out avtraining.org and also head over to SAsnow.com to learn more about the course.
